Staples president alludes to 10-inch Amazon tablet, among other versions

The president of U.S. retail for Staples has thrown more fuel onto the blaze that is the Amazon Kindle Fire -- specifically, the next version (or versions) of the online retailer's Android-based tablet.

Reuters reports that Demos Parneros says Amazon "is to introduce up to five or six tablet SKUs," and they we will see different sizes, including a 10-inch model.

It's important to note the use of the words "up to," meaning we may as as many as five or six, or as few as one or two. Also, note that the Reuters report says "five or six tablet SKUs." An SKU is a "stock-keeping unit," so we could be talking two or three versions of a single model. For example, 16-, 32- and 64-gigabyte versions of a single tablet would mean three SKUs. So it's unlikely we're looking at a 5-, 6-, 7-, 8- and 9-inch versions of a Kindle Fire tablet. (Though if we were talking about Samsung here, it wouldn't be out of the question.

Regardless, yes, we'll most likely see an improved Kindle Fire this year.